NOT TEACHER BASHING but do why do teachers have to do hours of planning every day?

[mostwonderfultime]

If the syllabus is the same every year which it is, do you not just use planning from previous years?
I'm sure I'm being naive but just read this on another thread.

One of my sisters friends - really lovely girl - trained to be a teacher not so long ago. She hated it - lasted about 2 years I think. She's now a paramedic, and loves it. I think that demonstrates how bloody hard teachers work!

"26Whatelsecanipossiblydo

@Tabbymumzretrain then. Be a teacher then you can have all of our family friendly perks that go with the job that you hear so much about. They’re crying out for teachers at the minute for some reason..."

No need, I already have a brilliant job thanks.

They work long hours because the planning and data requirements for English teachers are absolutely crazy. I work in Ireland and would not teach in England for double my current salary. Their job is a world apart from mine.

@TabbyMumz

"Teachers at our primary would arrive 8.30 ish and leave mostly by 4."

"I have never worked in a school where teachers arrived at 8.30!

Most teachers are in by 7.45 (many by 7) and don’t leave till the caretaker kicks them out at 6."

Well I was often at my school at 8 and there was noone there. Nobody at all except breakfast club staff. No teachers anywhere, carpark empty too, so they definately werent there. I live nearby so often saw them arriving at 8.30. Car park started emptying at 4. I went one night at 5 to my childs classroom and one teacher was left in the whole school. Trust me, they are gone.

When I taught, I would be in at 7.45 having dropped DD at breakfast club.

On the days when I didn't have meetings after school or after school clubs to run (which was 2 days as I was SLT), I would leave as soon as I could. I would go and work from home before collecting DD from after school club at 6.
I did this because it was easier and less distracting than trying to work in school and be constantly interrupted. The cleaner used to come in and chat to me in the classroom while she cleaned.

I got more done that way.

It may be 'lucky to be able to do that', but lots of industries allow working from home because it is less distracting and more productive. Yes - it was lucky, but it doesn't mean that my car not being in the car park at 4.15 2 days a week meant I'd clocked off for the day. Ever!

Still waiting to hear how I can plan 25 lessons and mark 250 books in 3 hours, Tabby?

Still waiting to hear how I can plan 25 lessons and mark 250 books in 3 hours, Tabby.

Do let me know, it’d cut my working hours in half!

Oops, double post.

.".. And if you’re going to sit there and say that all of your planning and marking for a week can be done in 2-3 hours, then I think you might be really quite unintelligent.

I taught 250 students per week in secondary. That would equate to under a minute per student to mark each exercise book if I only used my PPA timeand that’s without adding in planning lessons, also!"

Again, you are secondary. I'm talking about primary.

I know the kids in our school have had the same topics, rolled out the same way, for the seven years we’ve had kids (or kids I look after) at the school. Identical materials used year on year on year.

"16:30changeofheart1234567

I know the kids in our school have had the same topics, rolled out the same way, for the seven years we’ve had kids (or kids I look after) at the school. Identical materials used year on year on year."

Yessssss. Very very true. The same work sent home all the time. Same topics each year and school play gets rehashed every 3 or 4 years.

In Primary you have at least 60 and often 90 books a night to mark! Unlike secondary, the majority of primary schools expect work to be marked and feedback required daily.

... Soooo, how are you expecting the primary teachers to plan 25 lessons and mark a minimum of 90 exercise books per week in 3 hours?

I mean, you’re really just splitting hairs here.

I also can't compare secondary and primary teaching workloads as I've only done one of them.

I think it's not right to assume that primary is easier, though. Sure - the marking load will be less than a secondary English teacher, but all other things are not even - and there are demands on Primary Teachers that secondary teachers won't have. I wouldn't want to enter into a competition - or assume one is harder than the other.

I'd be interested to know why you think that.

Is it a lot of planning and marking though? Kids are in 25 hours a week, full time teachers teach about 21 of those hours. 21 lessons to plan, prepare, resource, assess, etc.
Plus emails, reports, assemblies, training, long term planning, learning the new syllabus, preparing for observations or evidencing a move along a pay scale, running training events, being a tutor, chasing wellbeing and discipline issues, break duties etc etc
The goalposts change constantly.

And year 6 can quite happily produce 2 pages of writing in a lesson!

@TabbyMumz What job do you do, out of interest?

Parents get to see these books that have been marked, on parents evening. With 30 kids in a class and only a few bits of written work a day, I doubt most teachers are marking 90 books every night. The work just isnt there. Unless once its marked, its thrown away?

This is a bit mind boggling. I taught maths at school part-time in my home country, as a side job whilst doing my degree. I had 6 classroom hours a week, and spent maybe under half an hour a week on admin and half an hour on planning "extras" for the uber-able students. But the country has a rigid state approved curriculum that all teachers have to follow and pretty much centralised lesson skeleton plans, I guess that helps a lot?

Thank you for the explanations and sorry I've offended you. I honestly have the utmost respect and could not do your job
I don't know any teachers in RL to ask.

Yes I'm like a pp - earliest I can drop off dc is 7.30 so earliest I can be at school is 7.50am. I like to pick up at 4pm or 5pm so I do make a move quite quickly at the end of the day. I then do the evening routine and work once my kids are in bed (pre schoolers so everything is quite early - this routine may well change when they are older). Pre-dc I was in as early as possible and stayed later (except Fridays when I was gone as quickly as possible!).

@TabbyMumz seriously. Just do one. You have no clue.
This is genuinely the first time I’ve been rude to someone on here. Smug troll!

Primary teacher.

7am - I'm in school and this is my preferred time to mark as I'm fresh and ready to look at books. I mark basically solidly until 8.30 when the children come in.
8.30-3.30 I'm actively responsible for a class (except for 50m lunch which I often eat at my desk while I do more marking/photocopying resources)
3.30 - 4.30 I'm in meetings or running clubs or using that time to prep resources for myself and any TAs that might be running interventions for me/completing general admin like replying to internal or parents' emails/ writing certificates/notes home to commend good behaviour.

That's 47 hours.

Then you add in assessment weeks, report writing weeks, parents evening, ISP/EHC reviews, subject monitoring, time to redo displays, phone calls that need to be made home, an extra curricular event that demands my attendance or a residential, planning tweaks to meet the needs of my class; the average is closer to 55 hours.

I get a lot of out my PPA time which keeps it to that 55 alongside the fact that I'm in a 5 form entry school so share out planning with my team. If I was a teacher working in a smaller school, I'd have more responsibilities and I can see how it would be easily 60 hours.

Teaching is the easy bit and I love it. I dont even mind the other parts really. It just takes time.

@mostwonderfultime

Thank you for the explanations and sorry I've offended you. I honestly have the utmost respect and could not do your job I don't know any teachers in RL to ask.

I am sorry if some posters have been snappy. It is a reasonable question to ask. I hope the answers have been informative.

People get touchy because, although your question might have been in good faith, we get posters like tabby who seem to take the opportunity to make insinuations and call us all exaggerators.

Planning depends on the experience of the teacher and the expectations of the school. I have been in one school where the teacher would use her planning and worksheets from previous years. She had been a Y2 teacher for years and knew her curriculum inside out. Quite often teachers are moved from year group to year group so they don't have that to fall back on. Also teachers tend to be creative types who like to deliver fun interesting and stimulating lessons that suit the class they have, so aren't likely to want to teach from other teachers plans.
When I was training it would take me at least an hour to plan a lesson (differentiated for all of the different abilities in my class) and then a further hour to produce the work-sheets, flip charts/powerpoints, wall displays and other materials for the lesson (including laminating, cutting, slicing etc). The lesson would last 40 mins, and then it would take me over an hour to mark the work. If the lesson didn't go down very well, you'd then have to reevaluate what you were teaching for the rest of the week. GOD it was a massive slog. On top of this, you also have to manage the behaviour of the children attend all of the other meetings, and also deal with parents inquiries.
My school was an 'outstanding' school that followed a creative curriculum, so everything had to be prepared from scratch (handwritten in cursive writing) and every lesson had to be "outstanding' and you'd quite often need to give the lesson in fancy dress and in character too. I didn't have a TA either so had to do it all on my own. I was on my knees by Easter and had to leave. Honestly, teachers work so hard, I have the utmost respect for them.

Parents get to see these books that have been marked, on parents evening. With 30 kids in a class and only a few bits of written work a day, I doubt most teachers are marking 90 books every night. The work just isnt there. Unless once its marked, its thrown away?

30 kids x 3 pieces of work per day = 90 books to mark.